Collateral Damage
by a11ons-y
Summary: "People break too easily, and sometimes the sound of a life shattering is less like glass hitting the pavement, and more like the explosion of a thousand mirrors." In which we explore the impact that certain deaths have on the Avengers- the deaths of people that they couldn't save. Warnings per chapter.


**A/N: **_YOLO._

_Okay, so here's the deal: I hate stories where angst is never resolved and where endings are sad. I like optimism! I like problems being figured out and dealt with and happy endings with lots of buttsex or else I cry. :(_

_So this is sort of new for me, in the sense that it's angsty, I'm unsure if problems are going to be resolved, and no buttsex. Yet. Maybe. Probably not._

_Anyway, this is a multi-chapter story exploring the Avengers feelings over someone that they couldn't save. You have to imagine, there are a lot of people that die, lots of people that they can't save. This fanfic is about the ones that they can't forget, the regular people caught in the crossfire. The ones that the Avengers can't get out of their heads._

_You will see the characters from the cinematic version of Avengers, and possibly Spiderman at the end. Maybe others. IDK._

**Warnings: **_T__alk of death/violence/blood, self-destructive behavior, mild language, and brief but sensitive topics concerning WWII and the Holocaust. (Also, brief SteveXTony friendship if you squint really really REALLY hard.)_

**Disclaimer:**_I own nothing, but I wish I did. (Seriously though, even if I can't own anything, someone should hire me for a part in a Marvel movie. C'mon.)_

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**CHAPTER ONE**

**MEGAN MEYERS**

* * *

When the Avengers are around, people die.

It has never been and never will be a question of "if" or "maybe", because the catastrophe left in the wake of each of their battles will always leave scars, both physical and mental to anyone or anything in close proximity to the events. Whether it consists of great, gaping gouges in the very Earth, or the inability to look at a street corner that had once been littered with the broken lives of people, there are wounds left over.

Steve Rogers has seen people die.

He was literally bred for battle, to be the ultimate soldier, and he has seen people die. He was not stupid before the serum, not naïve enough to think that he would be exempt from the trauma that regular soldiers faced, that he wouldn't be bothered by roads paved in blood or screams for lost family and friends. What he was unaware of was that it would never stop.

Truthfully, Steve hadn't thought much about what his life would have been like after the war. He supposed that his subconscious had played along with the idea that after he saw Hitler fall and after he helped build the world back up that he would join every other soldier- quietly living and appreciating life in all of its beauty. He hadn't had a lot of time to actually think about it as he was always moving, never thinking ahead of the next mission, never letting his thoughts stray from the short-term. Perhaps once or twice he allowed himself a brief reprieve in quiet hours where his mind would not stop spinning to picture a future with Peggy. But the future with Peggy never consisted of any details- he simply wanted the two of them together and happy.

Steve definitely never considered the possibility that he would still be fighting a war almost a century later.

He didn't think that he would be hearing the cries and pleas of desperate, dying people anywhere other than his worst dreams.

It's ridiculous to think that this new life in this new era is anything other than a war. Of course it's a war. It's almost worse than an official declaration of battle, of nations simultaneously agreeing that they're going to slaughter one another until one suffers losses that are too great. There will neverbe such a thing as "too much". There is no limit to the deaths that can happen because there are six billion innocent people left to kill. There is no end to this war, because catastrophes and disasters will _always _happen. Evil doesn't have a face this time, there is no direct enemy, no justice or revenge to try and find and take because it is everywhere and only the stupid try and fight it.

It's enough to make Steve wake up in the dead of night screaming and clawing at his sheets, trying to push away the weight of six billion dead.

But Steve is a leader, and he has to pretend.

Some days are easier than others. Sometimes the battles are short and the Avengers can walk away knowing that they've saved lives. That makes it easier to pretend that there isn't a family member watching them with hate, that there isn't an empty shell lying in a morgue because they weren't fast enough. When it's a day like this, it's Captain America's responsibility to make sure that the casualties are acknowledged, but not lingered on. It's his job to push the guilt and the sadness and the feeling of eternity to the back of their minds, to bring forth the satisfaction in the lives that they saved and the families that they've kept together, to keep them distracted from the fact that someone, somewhere, is simply gone.

It's Captain America's responsibility to shoulder their deaths so that the team doesn't have to.

The death toll is something that Steve tries not to linger on, because numbers are easier to think about then names and faces. Once a person is given a name and a face, then they are an individual with an entire past and an entire history to mourn and to think about. Steve sometimes thinks of the ingenious that the Nazi's had, in making their victims nothing more than numbers, in stripping them of being human at all- because killing numbers was easy. Numbers are nothing, numbers are not alive, numbers _can't matter. _It was one of the most efficient and brilliant, most disgusting and evil acts that they could have done.

Steve hates that fact that he has to think of the people that he couldn't save in numbers. He hates thinking that he might have something in common with those who exterminated human beings- that he might_ understand_ how this horrifying method of dehumanizing could have helped because it's turned into the only way he can sleep at night and not go completely crazy with guilt.

But there are a few people who he will never be able to erase from his guilt. There are people who aren't a part of the hundreds of dead, accusing voices that he has to listen to in his sleep as he pleads for forgiveness. These are the people that he doesn't bother pleading with. He simply listens, watches, and is glad for the utter misery that they bring him, because he truly believes that he deserves it. These are the people that he should have been able to help, should have been able to keep alive, should have been able to should have been able to _should have been able to_-

Megan Meyers.

Steve didn't know her name when he failed to save her. He didn't know she existed until he watched them lower her casket into the ground as he stood behind the crowd of people who had watched her laugh and breathe and eat and move and live. He didn't know that she was sixteen years old and was visiting New York City with her grandparents over spring break. He didn't know that she and her parents lived in New Jersey, that she had a black and white cat named Smudge, that her grade point average was 4.125, that she had a boyfriend named Jesse Nelson, that she loved kiwi fruit, that she wrote for her school newspaper, that her favorite movie was "Mary Poppins", that she wanted to be an author, that she sometimes chewed her hair or picked at her eyelashes or slept on her stomach or had exactly three freckles on one cheek and-

She was wearing a shirt with his shield on it when she died.

On occasion, enemies are easy to beat, but this wasn't one of those times. Steve can't even remember who exactly they were fighting, only that they were strong and that the tide of the battle could have been turned at any moment- the success of the Avengers had been pure luck.

He doesn't feel guilty over not remembering, because who the enemy was doesn't matter. He had taken his eye off of his opponent for a split second before he had been sent flying over an impressive distance. He remembers hitting the side of a building and feeling completely stunned by the time he hit the ground. He remembers the concrete being cool against his cheek, being able to feel the vibrations of people's shoes hitting the ground, but only being able to hear as though he were underwater.

It had been a long time since Steve's body had felt that completely sore from just a single hit.

_He should have sat up sooner, been on his feet quicker, ran faster towards her._

Steve registered the sight of someone running towards him.

_He should have been able to stand, to throw his shield, to yell at her to stay back._

She was short, with a curved chest and hips, curly caramel air blown back from her face.

_He should have been able to save her._

Steve saw her as she came for him, hands reaching out to help him, her expression terrified but determined.

_He should have been able to_

"Let me help you-!"

_He should have been able_

Steve watched her eyes go wide.

_He should have been_

She fell.

_He should have_

Steve lay on the ground as she joined him, her expression almost comically surprised as she staggered to her knees before slumping over onto her side.

_He should_

She was staring at the sky when he managed to regain his senses, to crawl over to her.

_He_

Steve helped her sit up and cradled her on his lap. He complimented her shirt. He told her that she was brave for coming to help him, that she could come and meet the other Avengers if she wanted to, that they'd all love to meet her. She was shaking, her eyes the color of maple syrup, big and wide and _wondering _as she looked at him. He didn't stop talking. He told her that she was beautiful. He said that she was going to be fine, that she wasn't dying, that her shirt wasn't stained red with her blood, that she didn't have bullet in her chest, and that no, no, no she couldn't stop breathing, she was alive, her eyes were open, they were looking at the sky, she was fine, she was fine, she was fine-

…

Steve doesn't remember anything after that, but he was told that he didn't stop talking.

He didn't stop talking, not when the battle was over and Bruce came and tried to get him to let go of her. Not when the ambulance came. Not even when they pronounced her dead. He muttered to himself even when he snapped back at the tower, talking and talking to a dead girl as he sobbed and screamed against Tony's shoulder as the other man held him close.

Steve's seen the footage of that happening, but he can't bring himself to ask J.A.R.V.I.S. to delete it.

It's a reminder to him now. He can't ever break down like that again.

When the Avengers are around, people die.

Once upon a time, Steve Rogers assumed that there would be such a thing as peace. He knows that he was wrong. It's childish thinking now, to believe that war is ever going to end, and Steve knows and accepts that he will be fighting until he dies.

Captain America believes in peace, but Steve Rogers does not. Peace is a myth for him. Peace is the idea that there are moments in time where someone is not dying, where someone is not being oppressed or imprisoned, where someone isn't waking up in the dead hours of the night crying out for people that are long gone. He has to worry about everyone, all the time, because that's his job. He has to watch people suffer and die in agony because he can't ever stop fighting. World peace won't ever happen. Peace for him will never exist.

So Steve sometimes wonders why he fights so hard for a war that can't be won.

At some point, he decided that it's partially because he's living for the people that aren't alive anymore. He'll live for them and take their problems and their lives. It's a burden, but he has to shoulder it. It's his fault they aren't breathing the air that he is, so he has to breathe it for them. He has to.

And although he must carry the weight of six billion, he doesn't want anyone else to have it.

This life is what he agreed to when he took the serum. He agreed to be Captain America and to carry on and persevere. He will take the burden of everyone because that is his job.

He will make sure that no one has to suffer what he suffers.

He will live his life and remain on the planet and live for Megan Meyers and the others that he should have saved.

Steve Rogers is Captain America, and Captain America will never stop fighting.

He can't.

He has to.

_He should have been able to save them._

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**A/N: **_Whoops, my hand slipped._

_Next up is either Tony or Bruce, and should be up next week. _

_Review? PLEASE? (Seriously, just send me a smiley face to let me know that I didn't eff it up too badly...! This is only my second fic in the Avenger fandom and I've never written much from Steve's POV, so...!)_


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